Artist Sells CIA Sculpture's Secret to Crypto Venture Firm

Since 1990, the Kryptos sculpture has stood outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Created by artist Jim Sanborn, it is a 9-foot-11-inch-tall copper S-curve with four encrypted panels. Three panels were solved within a decade, but the 97-character fourth panel, known as K4, has remained unbroken.

Over the years, Sanborn received countless attempted solutions, all incorrect. To boost his retirement fund and escape the burden, he decided to sell the answers. In 2025, an auction house offered the decryptions of both K4 and the unrevealed K5 panel. The winning bid came from Paradigm, a crypto-focused venture capital firm, which paid nearly one million dollars. Sanborn received $770,000.

Paradigm partner Dan Robinson, a lifelong cryptography enthusiast, says the puzzle fits the firm's philosophy and hopes owning Kryptos will attract top talent. Paradigm will now vet submissions for a fee of $1 per guess (Sanborn charged $50). They will also host contests with progressively harder challenges; the first solvers win $1,000. The ultimate prize for cracking K4 is glory and exclusive access to a pre-recorded video by Sanborn.

Prior to the auction, researchers Jarett Kobek and Richard Byrne had discovered the K4 plaintext in Sanborn's archives at the Smithsonian. They agreed not to release it, and Kobek has reiterated that he will never publish it.

Paradigm claims they themselves do not know the answer – it is sealed in an envelope and has not been opened. Submitted solutions will be hashed and compared to the stored hash. If they match, the mystery ends. Once K4 is solved, K5 will become solvable, and Paradigm plans to release its encrypted text.

Although Sanborn has passed on the secret, he remains involved. He still receives emails and speculates he might embed K5 hints in future public artworks.